Cohort Succession in the US Housing Market: New Houses, the Baby Boom, and Income Stratification

Federal housing policy in the US across the postwar period supported the construction of new houses more than public provision or renovation of older structures as a means of ensuring a sufficient supply of quality dwellings. Understanding trends in new housing in particular is thus crucial to understanding the housing regime. Following Myers (Housing demography: Linking demographic structure and housing markets. University of Wisconsin Press, 1990; Housing Studies, 14, 473–490,1999), this paper conceptualizes historical change in the housing stock within a demographic framework as the movement of cohorts of households through cohorts of housing stock. Recent evidence suggests that a new cohort of houses arose in the 1980s and 1990s (larger with more amenities than past vintages), and that buyers of those new houses were increasingly affluent. In this paper, I link the succession to a new cohort of houses to household cohort succession and examine the increasing affluence of new house buyers by age and cohort, focusing especially on the entry of the Baby Boom generation exactly when the new cohort of houses arrived. I use US Census microdata for 1960–2000 to develop a cohort longitudinal dataset, and analyze historical change in stratification in new house ownership. I find significant shifts between cohorts in income inequality among new house buyers, with implications for the capacity of the housing regime to meet the future needs of an increasingly diverse population.

Survival Convergence and the Preceding Mortality Crossover for Two Population Subgroups

In this paper, we present and develop the argument that if the survival functions for two population subgroups converge in later life, a mortality crossover must precede the occurrence of this convergence. Specifically, two survival curves, S ₁(x) and S ₂(x), associated with two distinct population subgroups, G₁ and G₂, tend to converge before all members die out, as often observed and anticipated. This convergence leads to an increased mortality acceleration for the “advantaged” group, and eventually fosters the occurrence of a mortality crossover. We present a mathematical proof for this relationship and offer several explanations for the mechanisms involved in the process of survival convergence and the preceding mortality crossover. This new presentation demonstrates that mortality crossover is a highly observable demographic event given the trend of survival convergence in later life.     

我国老年人临终前需要完全照料的时间分析

根据中国老年人健康长寿影响因素2005年第4周期调查数据,用多水平随机效应序列模型,对中国65岁及以上老年人临终前需要他人完全照料的天数进行较为系统的分析。结果显示照料时间与杜区社会经济发展因素无很大关联性,但与性别、受教育程度、有病及时治疗、子女可近度、经常参与宗教佛事活动和基期健康等个体因素存在一定依存关系。     

中国流动儿童政策分析

本文从儿童权利平等的角度出发,结合2003年“中国九城市流动儿童生活状况调查”数据,从国家和地方两个层面,主观和客观两个方面深入分析流动儿童政策的现状,剖析国家和地方政府之间的义务和责任关系,分析影响流动儿童政策制定、执行等环节的因素,针对流动儿童主要问题,提出政策建议。     

A simple two-step procedure using the Fellegi–Sunter model for frequency-based record linkage

The widely used Fellegi–Sunter model for probabilistic record linkage does not leverage information contained in field values and consequently leads to identical classification of match status regardless of whether records agree on rare or common values. Since agreement on rare values is less likely to occur by chance than agreement on common values, records agreeing on rare values are more likely to be matches. Existing frequency-based methods typically rely on knowledge of error probabilities associated with field values and frequencies of agreed field values among matches, often derived using prior studies or training data. When such information is unavailable, applications of these methods are challenging. In this paper, we propose a simple two-step procedure for frequency-based matching using the Fellegi–Sunter framework to overcome these challenges. Matching weights are adjusted based on frequency distributions of the agreed field values among matches and non-matches, estimated by the Fellegi–Sunter model without relying on prior studies or training data. Through a real-world application and simulation, our method is found to produce comparable or better performance than the unadjusted method. Furthermore, frequency-based matching provides greater improvement in matching accuracy when using poorly discriminating fields with diminished benefit as the discriminating power of matching fields increases.     

Intersubjectivity: Towards a Dialogical Analysis

Intersubjectivity refers to the variety of possible relations between perspectives. It is indispensable for understanding human social behaviour. While theoretical work on intersubjectivity is relatively sophisticated, methodological approaches to studying intersubjectivity lag behind. Most methodologies assume that individuals are the unit of analysis. In order to research intersubjectivity, however, methodologies are needed that take relationships as the unit of analysis. The first aim of this article is to review existing methodologies for studying intersubjectivity. Four methodological approaches are reviewed: comparative self-report, observing behaviour, analysing talk and ethnographic engagement. The second aim of the article is to introduce and contribute to the development of a dialogical method of analysis. The dialogical approach enables the study of intersubjectivity at different levels, as both implicit and explicit, and both within and between individuals and groups. The article concludes with suggestions for using the proposed method for researching intersubjectivity both within individuals and between individuals and groups.     

The ratification of ILO Conventions and the provision of unemployment benefits: An empirical analysis

This article tests the relationship between the ratification of International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions and the provision of unemployment benefits. Statistical tests focus on two related issues: why countries ratify ILO Conventions on unemployment benefits, and whether ratification influences government spending on unemployment benefits. The main findings are that democracy, region, income, and globalization are the main factors influencing why countries ratify ILO Conventions on unemployment benefits. In turn, the ratification of ILO Conventions is systematically associated with higher spending if countries have ratified more than two Conventions.     

Semantic Analysis of the Theoretical Foundations of Biology

生物学理论作为科学哲学研究中的一个另类一直受到关注。它与传统科学模式间的差异是造成这种现象的原因之一。解读这种差异的根源,需要对生物学的理论基础以及理论结构给予充分的关注。生物学特有理论结构所表现出的多元语境与语义结构的复杂性,决定了对生物学理论基础的研究应当重视语义分析的方法,尤其是对理论本身进行语义分解并研究其中的语义关联问题,从而解读生物学模式作为一种不同于理化科学的特殊科学解释观的合理性。     

Semiparametric Bayesian classification with longitudinal markers

Summary.  We analyse data from a study involving 173 pregnant women. The data are observed values of the β human chorionic gonadotropin hormone measured during the first 80 days of gestational age, including from one up to six longitudinal responses for each woman. The main objective in this study is to predict normal versus abnormal pregnancy outcomes from data that are available at the early stages of pregnancy. We achieve the desired classification with a semiparametric hierarchical model. Specifically, we consider a Dirichlet process mixture prior for the distribution of the random effects in each group. The unknown random-effects distributions are allowed to vary across groups but are made dependent by using a design vector to select different features of a single underlying random probability measure. The resulting model is an extension of the dependent Dirichlet process model, with an additional probability model for group classification. The model is shown to perform better than an alternative model which is based on independent Dirichlet processes for the groups. Relevant posterior distributions are summarized by using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.